It is common practice to have an optical monitoring system coupled to the output of a light source to monitor its output power and adjust system parameters as may be required in operation of the source. For example, a light source may be comprised of a fiber gain medium or a semiconductor gain medium and the output power is monitored to control of the pump power supplied to the gain medium. In order to monitor the output power of the light source, a small portion of the output power can be tapped off and provided to a suitable photodetector. Common beamsplitters or optical taps may be employed for this function in the output fiber of the light source. Only a small amount of light is needed and the goal is to effect as little as possible the output power provided to an application. The taped monitoring power should be as low as possible so that all of the power available can be provided to the application. This permits the employment of smaller capacity photodetectors having low saturation levels which translates into lower cost and smaller package requirements or package space. Down to about 1% power taping with a beamsplitter or tap is possible before it becomes polarization sensitive. Thus, if the output power being monitored is in the range of 300 mW to several watts, a 1% polarization tap provides several tens of milliwatts of power that is split off, which easily exceeds the saturation power level of a desired small capacity photodetector, which may have a saturation level of 10 mW of less. If the tap or beamsplitter is then made to split-off power below 1%, it becomes polarization sensitive. The lower the split-off power, the more polarization sensitive the device becomes. If the device is polarization sensitive, continuous variations in the power level of the split-off light will occur which, of course, is not acceptable for use in monitoring the real time output power on a fiber medium. Attempts to make these devices polarization insensitive is costly and not reliable from a reproducibility standpoint. Therefore, there is a need to provide a way for providing a tap or beamsplitter which provides a polarization insensitive tapped power level which can be handled by a lower cost, smaller saturation capacity photodetector.